Vergilius eBook

Antipater had brought many slaves to Rome, and some
of the noblest horses in the empire. He had
hired a palace and built a lion-house, where, before
intimates, he was wont to display his courage and his
skill. It had a small arena and was in the midst
of a great garden. There he kept a lion from
northern Africa, a tiger, and a black leopard from
the Himalayas. He was training for the Herodian
prize at the Jewish amphitheatre in Caesarea.
These great, stealthy cats in his garden typified
the passions of his heart. If he had only fought
these latter as he fought the beasts he might have
had a better place in history.

Antipater had conceived a great liking for the sister
of Appius. Her beauty had roused in him the
great cats of passion now stalking their prey.
He had sworn to his intimates that no other man should
marry her. His gallantry was unwelcome, he knew
that, and Appius had assured him that a marriage was
impossible; but the wild heart of the Idumean held
to its purpose. And now its hidden eyes were
gazing, catlike, on Vergilius, the cause of its difficulty.
In Judea he would have known how to act, but in Rome
he pondered.

It had been a stormy day in the palace of Antipater.
He had crucified a slave for disobedience and run
a lance through one of his best horses for no reason.
He came out of his bath a little before the hour of
his banquet, and two slaves, trembling with fear,
followed him to his chamber. They put his tunic
on him, and his sandals, and wound the fillets that
held them in place. One of the slaves began brushing
the dark hair of his master while the other was rubbing
a precious ointment on his face and arms.

“Fool!” he shouted. “Have
I not told you never to bear upon my head?”

He jumped to his feet, black eyes flashing under heavy
brows, and, seizing a lance, broke the slave’s
arm with a blow and drove him out of the chamber.
A few minutes later, in a robe of white silk and a
yellow girdle, he came into his banquet-hall with
politeness, dovelike, worshipful, and caressing.

“Noble son of Varro!” said he, smiling
graciously, “it is a joy to see you. And
you, brave Gracus; and you, Aulus, child of Destiny;
and you, my learned Manius; and you, Carus, favored
of the Muses: I do thank you all for this honor.”

It was a brilliant company—­gay youths all,
who could tell the new stories and loved to sit late
with their wine. As they waited for dinner many
tempting dishes were passed among them. There
were oysters, mussels, spondyli, fieldfares with asparagus,
roe-ribs, sea-nettles, and purple shellfish.
When they came to their couches, the dinner-table
was covered with rare and costly things. On platters
of silver and gold one might have seen tunny fishes
from Chalcedon, murcenas from the Straits of Gades,
peacocks from Samos, grouse from Phrygia, cranes from
Melos. Slaves were kept busy bringing boar’s
head and sow’s udder and roasted fowls, and
fish pasties, and boiled teals. Other slaves
kept the goblets full of old wine. Soon the banquet
had become a revel of song and laughter. Suddenly
Antipater raised a calix high above his head.